The (all white cis-women) managers position the company as a progressive place to work, with a justice-oriented public health mission: full of perks, queer-friendly, and a "great place for working mothers!" but in fact it's as oppressive, exploitative, and competitive as the next bro-ish startup.
You expect that, because the managers are queer women who are educated in public health and use oppression politics-informed discourse (i.e. "I'm gonna call you out on that" or "you're gonna need to own that"), that you're in a space that's friendly and accountable in some way to othered people. Nope! You won't find intersectional queer feminism here.
There were no trans or nonbinary-identifying people working there when I was (but plenty of insensitive comments about trans people!). And the company is super white--a huge spate of people of color have recently left--and there were plenty of microaggressive comments about our clients of color. The managers work people so hard that it can be an impossible place for those who are disabled, sick, older, or pregnant. And ableism was built into the culture: Section 508 compliance (which requires accessible design for visually impaired users) was the butt of employee jokes.
The short-sighted self-congratulation these recent glassdoor reviews (all by management) display for being so supposedly welcoming to working mothers shows how narrow the scope of which 'marginalized' people they're willing to accommodate is: young, healthy, white ciswomen who will cheerfully work through their breast pumping sessions (you can't bill THAT to a client!).
Once you're hired, you're reminded again and again how high the standard of quality is at CH (you feel special for even passing their hiring tests), and told often, "CH isn't for everyone. It's only for the toughest, smartest people." You observe this as, once or more a month, someone you loved working with gets fired or quits under mysterious circumstances. This "only the best" sense of selectivity--your work is getting positive feedback and you haven't been fired yet so you must be "the best"--makes you initially feel high-performing and valuable, but your work is ultimately driven by fear.
Managers have impossible and conflicting expectations, communicate terribly, and don't train people at all. All tasks are given a set of "target hours" which are often far too small--but if you rush and sacrifice quality, you'll deliver sloppy work and feel terrible--and get in trouble--and if you take the appropriate amount of time and bill for it, you'll feel slow and guilty for going over budget--and get in trouble. Success feels impossible under these circumstances. This creates an unspoken expectation that in order to be conceived of as "productive enough," you'll work on your own time and not bill the hours.
While many of the staff there are amazing and want to be helpful, they are often so busy that they don't have time to answer questions. "Sink or swim" is a common phrase there, but it's code for "figure it out yourself." Which, given the lack of organization and formal processes, you probably won't have the time or resources to do.
If you--as many employees do--eventually start to "sink," you'll be told you're not precise, fast, or communicative enough, and be subject to a number of public humiliation tactics/improvement plans under the guise of "helping you get organized." They'll make you send out a public list of everything you did that day, or put you on a "communication plan" (their version of a performance improvement plan--which half the staff seem to be on). Or they'll cut your hours and your wage. Even the highest performers live in fear of being fired.
And if you "swim?" You'll be told you're the best--then given more work than you can handle and a slew of new roles you have no training in. Then they'll blame you (they celebrate "manage up" culture which holds the lowest level employees with the least power and experience responsible for management problems at the upper level).
There's no HR department and leadership can be gossipy and inappropriate to the point of what feels like strategic manipulation. It's not uncommon to hear managers openly speak negatively about employees who aren't in the office (conversations about staffing decisions or performance that should happen in the "back room" often happen in public, which is blatant intimidation).
People's appearances and personalities are heavily policed (you might get penalized for being "abrasive" or "getting flustered easily" or "looking like you're sleeping on video chat.") There is not a wide variety of body types represented among staff. Leadership talks openly about their 500 calorie diets, candy and baked goods are discouraged, and the only snack provided is calorie-free seltzer (aside from the "Skinny Pop" popcorn they save for their often impoverished research recruits). Salad is omnipresent--but only when people have enough time to eat. It feels all the more ominous in the context of mainstream public health's tendency to fat-shame.
There's a constant supply of alcohol in the office and you'll feel pressured to go to the bar after work, which is obviously uncomfortable for people in recovery or who don't drink for other reasons. Bosses get drunk and say weird things and make you feel guilty if you don't stay until the end of the party. Every "fun" group activity is turned into a competition--and if you don't participate in the fun! you won't be accepted.
The women-led selectivity in the face of a body-shaming drinking culture can feel like a sorority house. I've heard multiple women describe their ritualistic-seeming punitive experiences as being tantamount to "hazing" (i.e., they did it to me so I'll do it to you--and you'll be stronger for it). And yet there's a deflective myth of "what could you possibly have to complain about when your bosses are buying you DRINKS!?"
Despite unlimited PTO, people are scared to go on vacation or take sick days because it often means they have to make up their work in their own time. Working through an illness or injury is celebrated (though as management has made clear, working through planned, privileged white motherhood is the most celebrated of all!). But if you're not on your A-game when you're sick--or get behind in any way because of a body that isn't quite up to snuff--you'll be told that you're "slower than the rest" and put on a performance improvement plan.
All of this creates a culture of fear, guilt, and shame. It's heartbreaking to see how many brilliant, well educated, motivated, quick-learning young women get hired at this company only to learn to feel awful about themselves because their best is never good enough.
It's no wonder that so many employees feel that they are in an "abusive relationship" with CommunicateHealth.
More than the stress and fast paced work, it's the psychological dissonance between the company's mission and their lived workplace culture that makes their employees so unhappy. The (mostly) good public health work they do/(mostly) good literacy mission is in direct opposition with their company policies and politics.
It's unsurprising (and of course, equally wrong) that a start-up run by a bunch of patriarchal dudes selling content for email spam would treat their employees this way. But it's harder to stomach when it's happening in a queer woman-run business that attracts compassionate people who care about health justice.
There's nothing queer, intersectional, or even particularly progressive about this place (#secondwavers). As they say at CommunicateHealth, "content is queen!" Yeah, if she's a cis, thin, able-bodied, white capitalist who keeps her mouth shut.
